Conversations from AIDS 2012: Ron Valdiserri and Tiffany West Discuss Washington, DC’s Response to HIV/AIDS

Editor’s Note: We had opportunities to catch up with so many great partners while at AIDS 2012Exit Disclaimer last month, we have been sharing interviews over the past three weeks. This is our final interview in the series. In the final of my series of conversations from AIDS 2012, I had an opportunity to sit down with Ms. Tiffany West, Chief of the Strategic Information Bureau in the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration at the District of Columbia Department of Health. As discussed in another recent blog post, DC is among the jurisdictions most heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS in the United States. Tiffany and I had a very interesting discussion about what she and her colleagues are doing to address HIV/AIDS in DC, including efforts to bring HIV prevention and treatment closer together and how the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and DC’s participation in the 12 Cities Project have helped contribute to local health programs and goals. We also discussed how DC is working to improve the HIV care continuum (or treatment cascade), including the innovative use of program and surveillance data collected by Tiffany’s office to re-engage people living with HIV in care, and the important roles that community-based and faith-based organizations can and are playing in the District’s response to HIV/AIDS.

Watch our brief conversation below. Then, use the Comments section below to let us know if any of the approaches we discuss might be useful to you in your community.